Copper Cooler Comparison II

Akasa Silver Mountain and Thermalright CB-6L

This content was originally featured on Amdmb.com and has been converted to PC Perspective’s website. Some color changes and flaws may appear.

The Akasa Silver Mountain is a Copper heatsink that has been plated Silver which in turn gives it a higher heat dispersal rate than Copper. As can be expected, the Silver Mountain has some weight to it; with the stock 60mm Delta 37 CFM fan it weights in at 480 grams. The heatsink itself is 62mm x 60mm x 35mm. The physical size insures that it will fit the great majority of current day motherboards without any difficulty.

The surface area is made up with 216 slats accounting for a rather large surface area. Please note the shroud, this is not one you assemble yourself, it has been ingeniously attached to the heatsink, clipping on in four places and unlike some shrouded heatsinks has been designed for the fan to blow down towards the core of the CPU.

The clip itself is one of the best that I’ve had the pleasure to install. There are two prongs and a bottom stop to insert a screwdriver in, using a downward and outward motion with a very reasonable amount of pressure the clip easily attaches as its designers have intended.

A solid high performance HSF, the Akasa Silver Mountain can be purchased at www.plycon.com for only $38.99 USD and includes the stock Delta fan. Our friends in the UK can find the silver Mountain at www.chillblast.co.uk.

How did this sparkler perform?

Thermalright CB-6L
(Restudied to reflect change in CPU to the Athlon XP 1800)

Like their SK-6 the CB-6L is well packaged. The CB-6L comes equipped with a Sunon 60x60x10 mm Vapor bearing nine blade fan. This fan was chosen because of its fairly low noise level, 33.5 dBA’s that is an important factor to many people. But for our high performance testing we’ll replace the stock fan with our Delta 37.6 CFM fan at 46.5 dBA’s.

It seems Thermalright always has a new wrinkle in their products, this time the aluminum has been nickel chrome plated.

The vital static’s are as follows; the overall dimensions are 77Lx65Wx32H mm; it weighs in at 225 grams (well under the AMD specified weight limit of 300 grams). The Copper heat spreader is soldered to the base, unlike others that are screwed on or use epoxy to attach it to the bottom. It uses the same clip as the SK-6 and installation is uneventful.

The CB-6L did surprising well with the Delta fan installed. The CB-6L with Delta fan can be had at www.kdcomputers.com for around $20.00 USD + shipping.